


It was almost Yule, and there was almost a murder

by greyathena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: Brienne thought things were going shockingly smoothly after Jaime arrived, alone, at Winterfell to join the armies of the North.  But then there was the sword through the window.





	It was almost Yule, and there was almost a murder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellethom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellethom/gifts).



> Happy happy JBmas, Ellethom! Ellethom supplied the inspirational words Rage, Jealousy, Hormones, and this picture: https://i.imgur.com/5h2kzL2.jpg but is not in any way to blame for . . . whatever happened here.

The words "they say" had never been good news for Brienne. "They say." "Have you heard." "I hear."

"I hear the dancing master put you out because the other girls were afraid of you."

"I heard you were born a boy _and_ a girl."

"They say you're really a boy, but your da decided to make you a girl because all his daughters died." That was a classmate of hers, when she still went to the little dame school. "Bet he was sorry when his other son died too and all he had left was you."

Brienne had punched him in the eye. She thought being allowed not to go to school anymore would be wonderful, until she found out what spending all day with her septa was like.

One thing she learned as she grew was that adults were just as childish as children, because the whispers never stopped.

"I heard her father let her go off fighting because he hoped she wouldn't come back."

"I bet she has a cock."

"They say the Kingslayer meant to take her but he couldn't bring himself to do it."

She'd have told anyone who asked that she'd learned not to hear the whispers, or the shouted taunts, or the singsonging, anymore. That would be a lie. She heard all of it, and gritted her teeth against it.

Because she believed in him, wanted to believe in him, she heard Winterfell's every whisper about Jaime like a personal blow. "They say he was his sister's consort, right out in the open like." "They say he's sworn to wipe every Targaryen off the map, finish the job." "Well if he's sworn, then the Dragon Queen is safe as houses, isn't she?" 

Uproarious laughter.

"Do you think the Northern lords will cause trouble, milady?" Pod asked as he trailed after her. "When Ser Jaime comes?"

Because it was concern and not gossip, she responded. "Not if they're smart. They know we need every sword we can get against the army of the dead, that's why King Jon went south in the first place."

"Do you think _he'll_ cause trouble?" Pod pressed. "Ser Jaime? With the lords?"

Brienne sighed. "Not if he's smart."

Pod looked distinctly concerned.

As it happened, Jaime seemed to have discovered his best behavior. Despite the fact that his arrival - alone - set off the loudest wave of murmurs and whispers yet to hit Winterfell, at least in Brienne's presence, Jaime looked neither to the right nor to the left and kept his mouth shut. Gone was the Kingslayer, cocky despite his filth and his rags and his overgrown hair and beard, who'd taunted Lady Catelyn as if he actually hoped to be murdered. Which, Brienne had to admit, he probably had. Now he was as neat and as beautiful as she remembered from Riverrun and Kings Landing - though every time older, the years had been rougher on him than on most - and the smug smile with its dark sparkle of self-loathing was nowhere to be seen. His gaze was unwavering as he crossed Winterfell's yard. Except - for when he passed Brienne. His head turned, his eyes met hers, he drew in a visible breath and let it out in almost a sigh; and then he continued toward King Jon and his fate.

"Ser Jaime," the king said in neutral greeting.

"Your Grace," Jaime said, and Brienne let out her breath.

When the king dismissed him, Jaime made straight for Brienne. "Lady Brienne," he said, when she couldn't find a word to speak to him. When she didn't move, either, he raised his real hand and clasped her elbow.

" _They say that they -_ " someone hissed behind her, and she loudly announced, "I'm glad you came," just so she wouldn't hear the rest.

Praise the Seven, Jaime seemed equally willing not to hear.

The whispers got louder when it became apparent that Ser Jaime had come north less to serve King Jon or Lady Sansa, or even Queen Daenerys whom he'd yet to face, than the dour, silent Lady Brienne. Or if not strictly to serve her, then at least to follow her around like an especially handsome duckling. Not strutting about being Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer; just taking things in.

"You'd think she dripped honey from her -" one of the Karstarks muttered as they crossed the yard one morning; but all that happened was Podrick ending up with a black eye.

"Let me guess," Jaime said as Brienne made up a snow pack with a great deal of sighing. "We should see the other fellow?"

"Indeed you should," Pod said, chin high. "Only I doubt he'll make it to dinner, because Lady Mormont kicked him so hard in the balls he couldn't get up."

So aside from Pod getting into the occasional scuffle, and Lady Mormont glaring at people as though she could set them on fire with her eyes (which admittedly she did whether they were slandering Brienne or not), everything remained relatively peaceful. 

Until the sword through the window.

It happened at dinner, probably. At least, no one noticed anything _before_ dinner, and then one of the Knights of the Vale started a scuffle with one of the Queen's Dothraki for some reason and so there was a great deal of noise - shouting, plates and platters clattering, all sorts. No one heard the glass shatter, although it must have, because when Jaime turned his head there was a swordpoint inches from his nose.

"Down!" Brienne shouted as soon as she saw the sword, and Jaime obeyed, ducking his face toward the table as he reached for the hilt of his sword.

She realized nothing else was going to happen at the same time the rest of the hall noticed the sword sticking through the window. There was a very loud moment of dead silence, and then the whispering began. All around.

"Do you think . . ." she heard a hundred times at once from every corner of the room before Podrick said it out loud. "Milady, do you think it was -"

"The White Walkers?" Brienne finished. Podrick frowned, which she took as agreement. "Why would they thrust a sword into the castle but not attack?"

"Because Winterfell is protected by the blood magic of its lords in the crypts," Lady Mormont said.

Everyone at their table looked at her.

Lady Mormont calmly dipped her bread into her soup. "My nurse taught me when I was a girl," she said. "Didn't yours?"

"I'm not Northern," Brienne stammered, distracted from the matter of the sword.

"I was never a girl," said Podrick. "O-or Northern."

Lady Mormont looking at him as if he were the greatest idiot in the North was what snapped Brienne out of it. 

"At any rate," Brienne said, "the guards would have alerted if the armies of the dead had come anywhere near this close. So who . . ." She got up from the table and marched outside. Podrick, Jaime, and a small horde of others followed silently.

The hilt of the sword and a few inches of the blade were visible from the outside of the window. Brienne circled the impaled sword, looking at it from one side and another, the snow crunching under her feet the only sound.

"It was a tall person," she said finally.

One of the Northern lords started to ask, "How do you -"

"The angle," said Lady Mormont, who had brought her bit of bread and mug of soup out with her. "It goes in from above."

"Someone could have lifted their arm very high . . . " Pod said, trying to demonstrate.

"No," said Jaime. "They'd have to be too far from the window to get this angle, and then they couldn't have driven it in so far."

"In any case, my lady," Podrick hissed urgently. "I didn't mean the White Walkers. Earlier."

"What?" Brienne asked.

"I meant," he whispered, close to her ear, "do you think it was _him_?"

Brienne frowned in confusion. Podrick nodded his head meaningfully at Jaime.

Brienne frowned harder. "Do I think Ser Jaime drove a sword through the window from the outside, an inch from his own head, _while_ sitting indoors on the bench?"

"Look, I know none of you trust me," Jaime said, his eyebrow lifted.

"So anyone could have wanted to kill you," Lady Mormont pointed out before taking a bite of her bread and soup.

"Thank you, Lady Lyanna," Jaime said with a bow in her direction. "Very helpful. But I'm not a magician."

"I didn't mean Ser Jaime." Podrick gave Brienne a look that was bafflingly apologetic. "He obviously didn't try to stab himself in the head."

"Not yet," Jaime said.

" _I meant_ . . ." Podrick raised his eyebrows meaningfully. It did not mean anything to Brienne.

"He means that Tormund."

Everyone turned to look at the Northerner who'd spoken. Unabashed, the man took a bite of the sausage he'd brought outside with him.

" _Tormund_?" Brienne said.

"The fellow who was at Eastwatch when the Wall collapsed?" Jaime asked, sounding equally at a loss.

Brienne looked around and didn't see the large wildling anywhere, not that that meant anything. "The wildlings don't care for our southern disputes," she said in some confusion. "I don't think they've ever heard the word _Lannister_. Why would he want to kill Ser Jaime?"

"'Cause he's courting you, i'n'e?"

Brienne stared back at the Northerner with his mouthful of sausage. "What?"

"That Tormund. He's been courting you." The man swallowed. "Milady. And now . . ."

"And now _what_?" Brienne said, at the same time that Jaime beside her said, "Is a wildling _courting_ you?"

"Obviously not," Brienne snapped at him, feeling her face grow red. "And even if he were," she addressed herself back to the Northern fellow, "I don't understand why you think he would be under the impression that murdering our allies would impress me?"

"Don't know about impressing you," said the placid Northerner. "But he has to get rid of the pretty one some way, don't he?"

There was a moment of complete silence, and then Jaime said, "Am I _the pretty one_?"

Several heads nodded.

Jaime turned to Brienne, who already felt like throwing herself onto a White Walker sword. "A wildling wants to kill me because I'm competition for your hand?"

" _No_ ," she said, but Pod was nodding with gritted teeth. "No!" Brienne repeated, this time addressing the word to her squire.

"If you say so, milady," he said.

"Well, is he like to try again?" Jaime asked.

"He didn't try the first time!" Brienne insisted.

Jaime looked around at their assembled audience and stage-whispered, "They all seem to disagree."

"They're just mocking," Brienne said. Her face burned.

"I would never," said the indignant fellow holding half a sausage. "You saved my life when them wights attacked us."

Brienne pinched the bridge of her nose. "Will you all go back indoors, please? I will ascertain who put the sword through the window, and ensure that no one is in danger."

"I can help, though," said Lady Mormont. "I've read all of the Maester Duncan mysteries. And I promise not to tease you about Ser Jaime."

"Ain't no mystery," said one of the other Northerners. "A jealous rage, is what it was."

"It was not -" Brienne started to say, utterly exasperated; when they were interrupted by Arya Stark wandering over and asking, "What jealous rage?"

"There wasn't -" Brienne began again, but Arya interrupted her once more. "Gendry!" she shouted, her eyes now focused on the sword sticking out of the window.

"What?" an answering call came from across the yard.

Arya simply waited silently, and so did everyone else, watching her. The lady's patience was rewarded, as eventually the tall young blacksmith came running.

"What are you - oh." Young Gendry's gaze was fixed on the sword in the window, the color draining from his face. "Oh no."

"I _told_ you," Arya said.

"That big ginger wildling tried to kill the Kingslayer over Lady Brienne," said one of the Northerners helpfully. 

"No," Gendry said.

One of the Northerners had nudged the first. "We're not supposed to call him that."

Brienne dropped her head forward in resignation at what was apparently going to be the new most awkward day of her life.

"What? 'Ginger?'"

"No -"

"No," Gendry said again. "I mean."

"It's his fault," Arya said, pointing at the blacksmith.

Jaime drew himself up, looking affronted. " _You_ tried to kill me?"

"No!" Gendry repeated hastily. "I have nothing against you. It was your father tried to have me killed, not you."

"Wait, what?"

Arya ignored Jaime. "I told you we needed to find it. You could have killed someone!"

"Nothing happened!"

Arya turned on her heel to face Jaime and Brienne. "We were fighting. I knocked the sword from his hands."

"You fought dirty!" Gendry interjected.

"It went flying," Arya said, her back to him. "We didn't see where it landed. I _said_ we should look."

"You tried to kill me by _accident_?" Jaime asked.

"I don't think that's what 'accident' means," Podrick put in.

"So there's no mystery?" Lady Mormont asked, sounding as disappointed as Jaime was offended.

"Just a stupid blacksmith who _could have started a war_ ," Arya hissed.

"With who?" Gendry asked her.

Arya opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again. "Fair point. But still."

"Anyway if you knocked the sword out of my hands, isn't it your fault where it ended up?"

"This seems like it could go on for a while," Lady Mormont said, eyeing the two of them, "and my soup is getting cold."

"Yes, do go back inside," Brienne said, seizing the opportunity to put an end to the whole thing. "Tell them all that no one tried to murder anybody."

Arya gave an odd inexplicable snort, but everyone else, except Jaime, obediently set off back toward the doors.

"I don't suppose you're also a glazier?" Brienne asked a shamefaced Gendry as he pulled the sword out of the window. Bits of glass went tinkling into the snow.

"I can probably patch it," he said.

"What happened here, then?"

Brienne was struck silent at the sight of the absolute last person she'd needed to walk into this mess. He was leaning on a crutch because of the injury he'd taken when the Wall came down, but - yes, she would still believe him capable of driving a sword through a window. Not that he had any reason to do so. And anyway, if he were going to kill Jaime he'd do it upfront.

Arya had - hopefully - missed the entire discussion about Tormund, and so there was no apparent awkwardness in her address. "Gendry nearly killed Ser Jaime with a stray training sword," she said. 

"Which _she_ knocked out of my hands."

Tormund paused half a moment, looking at the broken window, and then burst into hearty laughter. "Better luck next time, lad!" he said, clapping Gendry on the back before limping off toward the doors to the hall.

"Wait," said Jaime, as Arya and Gendry also wandered in the direction of dinner, "did he mean in getting beaten by a girl, or not actually killing me?"

Brienne thought about protesting again, but Tormund had thrown her such a _look_ before he went inside. She sighed. "I honestly don't know."

"Well, I'll watch my back," Jaime said as they trudged through the snow back to the hall.

"I certainly hope you already were."

He snorted. "Especially now that Arya's pointed out no one would actually care if I were murdered."

"Your brother might."

"He might."

As her hand reached for the door handle, Brienne was aware of Jaime looking at her. "What?" she asked.

"Is he really?"

"Is who really what?"

Jaime nodded at the doors, indicating the inside of the hall. "That fellow."

It was on the tip of Brienne's tongue to deny again, but even she had to admit that wouldn't be entirely honest. "Whatever he thinks he's doing," she said finally, "I wouldn't call it 'courting.'"

"Hmm," said Jaime, but he only reached out and pulled the other door open with his good hand. 

Every head turned, just about, as they came in, but Lady Mormont's voice soared over the hall shouting, "Stop staring, I told you all there's no mystery." She still sounded rather disappointed.

"I think I like that little girl," Jaime said as they wound their way back to the table under the broken window.

"Oddly, I rather think she likes you," Brienne replied.

"Is there any of that hot wine left?" Jaime asked as they sat down. "Without glass in it?"

"Over the fire," Pod said, pointing at the cauldron and half rising from his seat. "I'll -"

Jaime nudged him back down. "Finish your soup while it's lukewarm. I can still carry a cup."

Brienne dedicated herself to checking her plate for glass in order not to watch everyone else watch Jaime cross the room. She didn't lift her eyes until a cup of steaming spiced wine was slid into her field of vision. 

"My lady," Jaime said, and she looked up to see him smiling at her, a second cup balanced between his side and his golden hand. 

"Thank you," she stammered as he set his own cup on the table with his real hand, and sat back down across from her. It was odd, even with this new rather courteous Jaime, to have him fetch her a cup of wine as if she were a proper woman. As if -

Wait.

She frowned at the wine as if searching it for evidence like Lady Mormont's Maester Duncan.

"It's not too hot," Jaime said, apparently trying to guess at the reason she wasn't drinking it.

"Are you afraid of poison?" Lady Mormont asked.

Someone really needed to find that child something else to read.

Brienne took a long sip to demonstrate she was neither afraid of burning her mouth nor of poison. The heat, and the spice, warmed her all through and she was feeling suddenly rather braver, brave enough to look at Jaime across the table.

He was still smiling, but gently. "It will be Yule soon," he said. "Lady Brienne, how is it celebrated on Tarth?"

Jaime spent most of his time in her company, but he didn't single her out like this among other people. Brienne felt a combination of warmth and fear and doubt, none of which had anything to do with Yule on Tarth.

Was Jaime trying to . . . was he . . . 

She took another sip of wine as if it were actually laced with bravery, and managed to speak. "There'd be pine branches everywhere, for one."

"Do pines grow on Tarth?" Lady Mormont asked.

"Yes, my lady," Brienne told her, feeling surer of herself now that she was talking to the child, even though Jaime was listening across the table. "About a quarter of the island is forest land. They grow near the dunes, so even in a warm year it sort of looks like snow for Yule if you squint a bit."

"I'd like to see that," Lady Mormont said.

"Perhaps when winter is over Lady Brienne will bring us all there," Jaime said.

Brienne caught a glimpse of his warm expression and began, just a little bit, to hope.

Because if Jaime Lannister could decide to court her, then of course they could defeat the Night's King, because _anything_ was possible.


End file.
